I have the same situation with chipmunks. Cute little guys but they wreak havoc with the landscaping at times. I have a Hav-a-hart trap and relocate a dozen or two of the little b@stards every summer. It keeps the damage to a minimum trappin and hauling them away. They all get relocated a mile away ...

Honda Element. They don't make them anymore so it has to be bought used. Massive head clearance and very good room for a tall 6.5-foot driver. Also good I presume for smaller stature folks. And good mileage.

There are nice advantages to staying at a Disney Resort: Free and frequent bus service from the resort to any Disney park and back. This is a great feature - morning at Epcot, hotel for a nap, MGM Disney for the afternoon with no parking or driving. The mid-priced resorts have enough attractions, yo...

My wife and I LOVE vacations. We know where we want to go and what we want to do without having to plan much of anything. Because we almost always go to Las Vegas where we know the scene, the weather is always perfect and the stress level is zero because we know what we want. This Labor Day weekend ...

I suppose you can add up $19K plus per year times 20 years ( holy moley $380K!) and see it it makes sense to move to avoid that and get int a school district that meets your needs for the taxes you pay. Our boy has always been in private school - the public district here thinks highly of itself but ...

Dave Ramsey would say - rice and beans, beans and rice. You pay what for your cell phones per month? Start there. Sell so much of your stuff the pets/kids think they are next. Stop with "planning" to do and just do it.

I have never regretted getting rid of a tree close to the house that kinda bugged me. Especially when it interfered with growing grass. Get the sucker removed. And $2K for trimming is robbery unless you have some kind of special access issues that required CONSIDERABLE extra time and/or special equi...

Your last paragraph I think is key: "I've exhausted all my ideas and am looking for any sort of resources or experiences from others on how to navigate this. I suppose at some point I'll have to just accept that she's going to do things her way and there's little or nothing I can do about it. N...

Back in the day I was lucky enough to work in a lab so I had access to stir plates and PH meters. I made a 10X solution once a week and swapped out the old for the new, adding 9 gallons of water in the tub to the 10X mix I made in the lab. The plant food was organic. The muriatic acid I added in tin...

Revolvers are easy to figure out for people with little/no gun knowledge. No safety, no failure to eject, no failure to feed. Pull trigger go bang, repeat as needed. Ruger just came out with an LCR with a 3" barrel. Stone cold reliable, lightweight and not so pretty you'll worry about it. Throw...

I don't know about the arrangement of your house, but if the roof line anywhere is at first floor level the bad guys can just climb up through the aluminum soffit and come down through the drywall ceiling in about one minute. The door won't matter.

I've always been extremely bored with gyms and exercising inside. Can't stand it and won't do it. So...I run outside with weights. Try jogging an hour a day with a 10 pound barbell in each hand. That will crap you out like you won't believe. Do it when it's zero degrees outside and now you're talkin...

My dad has a Taurus Judge as his night stand gun. I've shot it and the recoil is quite mild. The spread when you shoot .410 is large so it's only good at very close range - across the room. Personally I'm not a super huge fan of the gun but I see it's appeal. Here's a good review and demonstration: ...

If a rifle was our home defense weapon it would definitely be loaded and ready to go by the bedside. An unloaded or not immediately accessible gun is useless for defense. Gimme 5 seconds no matter where I am in the house and I'll have a gun in my hand ready to go. Sounds crazy to some, but hey - our...

No handgun ammunition will have the stopping power of a decent rifle caliber or 12 or 20 ga. shotgun. 20 gauge for a shotgun is plenty sufficient and less dramatic than 12 ga. for home defense. Easier to handle the blast/recoil. Realistically the best gun for self defense in the home would be an AR1...

High bullet capacity is overrated. In the vast majority of self defense uses of a handgun, only a couple-few rounds are fired. I love revolvers because they are cool but also stone cold reliable. No failure to feed, no stovepiping. Bad round? Just pull the trigger again to go to the next round. No s...

For hunting: Got a couple Ruger 10/22 rifles for small game. One was a gift from my father over 30 years ago and still shoots like new. Now it's the grandson's favorite fun gun. The 25 round magazines you can get now are great. Also have a bolt action .308 - Ruger Gunsite Scout rifle. It's a beast. ...

Done the FSBO thing - it worked out great. House sold very quickly. My only recommendation is to not bother with appointments because people never show up. Hold open houses on the weekends on your schedule and let the buyers come flocking. Hubbie can take the kids somewhere for a few hours while you...

I kept an old XP laptop going reasonably well for many years by doing the following: 1. Defrag 2. Delete files I didn't need from the hard drive - I was running close to capacity. 3. Delete all programs I didn't need. 4. Check applications running in the background I didn't need and kept them from o...

Get a jar of this and the other ingredients called for on the label. Do the crock pot version you can start earlier in the day.Totally brainless way to make one of the best home cooked meals you will ever have.

Indeed - why? Pay a premium for a horribly weak cup of coffee? You want convenience and a good tasting cup - get any decent espresso maker. Pack the handle cup thingy with cheap ground espresso, crank it in and hit the button. In 30 seconds you will have a double shot of super dark strong coffee goo...

Get a 20 year term policy for both of you. It will be super cheap, and by then - 1. your kids will be in their 20's and fully capable of taking care of themselves - and 2. if you have your act together you will be self-insured due to a sizable estate which you can pass along, God forbid something ha...

We have multiple accounts with varying options not available given the account. My 401K has awesome DFA small cap and international options that my wife's 401K does not. However, she has a handful of great vanilla Vanguard options. So I took the time a few years ago to set up a tab in the family for...